According to the BLS, private solid waste operations had an incident rate of 198.5 per 10,000 workers in 2009. Local government waste operations had an incident rate of 877.2 per 10,000 workers last year. The overall incident rate for waste operations was 436.1 per 10,000 workers.

Additionally, the median number of days that a private industry waste worker was away from the job after suffering an illness or injury was five in 2009. For public waste workers, the median number was eight.